ALBERT HUIE OBITUARY
guardian.co.uk
Wednesday 17 March 2010 19.05 GMT
Landscape and portrait artist often described as the father of Jamaican
painting Edward Lucie-Smith
Crop Time, 1955, one of the best-known works by Albert Huie.
Photograph: National Gallery of Jamaica
Albert Huie, who has died aged 89, was often described as the father
of Jamaican painting. Although he produced folkloric genre pieces,
his main concern was with his island’s rich landscape and the physical
beauty of its people.
His appreciation of beauty occasionally got him into trouble. A
locally famous example is his voluptuous nude Miss Mahogany. This
caused an uproar when it was first exhibited in Kingston in 1960,
and a second uproar 40 years later when it featured in Air Jamaica’s
SkyWritings magazine. There was such an outcry that the edition of
the magazine had to be withdrawn.
Albert Huie Huie, who was by then living in Baltimore, Maryland,
was philosophical about the revival of the scandal: "The first time,
I thought the people were backward because nude paintings had been
shown throughout the world for years. I now just think these people
[who complained] are limited."
He had perhaps more reason to feel slightly aggrieved by the way
in which the intellectual elite of his own country had turned away
from the kind of art he practised. In his latter years, the fashion
in Jamaica was for "intuitives" – untutored artists, usually from a
Rastafarian background, whose work resembles that of the voodoo artists
to be found in Haiti. These were thought to be more representative of
local sensibilities and, in particular, to reflect links with African
culture – something that Huie could not claim to do.
He was born into a poor family during colonial rule and grew up in
the town of Falmouth, Trelawny. The only member of his family who
encouraged his ambition to be an artist was his grandmother Sarah. He
used to scribble on her walls and floors with pieces of charcoal taken
from her stove. He moved to Kingston, aged 16, and became a china
painter, although his family wanted him to become a teacher. His
first formal training in art came from the Armenian painter Koren
der Harootian, then living in Jamaica. He was selected for shows of
world art at the New York World’s Fair (where he was a prizewinner)
and the San Francisco Golden Gate exhibition, both in 1939.
Huie joined the circle of the sculptor Edna Manley and, from 1940 to
1944, served as a teaching assistant at the art classes she organised.
In 1943 he exhibited his work at the Institute of Jamaica in Kingston,
his first major solo exhibition and the first solo show given there
to any living Jamaican artist.
In 1944, thanks to a British Council scholarship, Huie went to the
Ontario College of Art in Canada. He later studied aesthetics at the
University of Toronto. Two of his teachers in Canada, JEH MacDonald and
Frank Carmichael, who had been founder members in 1920 of the Group of
Seven, influenced his attitude towards landscape. Later that decade,
when he moved to Britain, he went first to the Leicester College of
Art and then the Camberwell School of Art in south-east London. Here he
studied under Victor Pasmore and Claude Rogers, founder members of the
Euston Road school, which emphasised the close observation of nature.
Later he settled in Canada, before moving to Baltimore. He received a
number of Jamaican honours – the Institute of Jamaica Silver Musgrave
medal (1958), the Gold Musgrave medal (1976), the Order of Distinction
(1983) and promotion to Commander of the Order of Distinction (1992).
One of his images, The Vendor, was also used on a Jamaican postage
stamp.
In addition to Miss Mahogany, his best known images include The
Counting Lesson, a portrait of a Jamaican girl, now on extended
loan to the National Gallery of Jamaica, and Crop Time (1955) in
the National Gallery’s own collection. The Bahamian art historian
Krista Thompson said of The Counting Lesson that it provides "a rare
representational mirror of black Jamaica, allowing black viewers
to attribute to themselves the signs of distinction, prestige and
selfhood formerly reserved for the white colonial elite".
Huie was much loved for his genial personality and was always
celebrated when he returned to Jamaica. He is survived by his wife,
Phyllis, three daughters – Evelyn, Christine and Alicia – and three
grandchildren.
~U Albert Huie, artist, born 31 December 1920; died 31 January 2010